


Counting Stars

by Leela, moodwriter



Series: My Soul is Painted like the Wings of Butterflies [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, M/M, Romance, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1831309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Leela, https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodwriter/pseuds/moodwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ship’s plummeting towards the planet, every screen screaming at Derek. His mind is filled with white noise, and there’s a moment when he almost gives up. Then he feels a presence, stronger than anything he’s ever known before, overriding everything, the ship’s systems, his own body through the mating link. He‘d laugh if he weren’t so dazed. </p><p>“I am... S-Stiles. I mean no harm. Let me mate with you, let me take control.”</p><p>And Derek lets him because he has no other choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Stars

**Author's Note:**

> **Artist:** qafmaniac
> 
>  **Beta(s):** aislinntlc and eeyore9990
> 
>  **A/N:** This is part 1 of a series, but it also stands on its own. 
> 
> Much love to our betas, aislinntlc and eeyore9990, who both managed to give us feedback and cheerlead despite each travelling thousands of miles in different directions to go on holidays.
> 
> And, seriously, the art and soundtrack for this story are absolutely gorgeous. Go to the art post on [LJ](http://qafmaniac.livejournal.com/239139.html) or [DW](http://qafmaniac.dreamwidth.org/308669.html), admire her talent, download the soundtrack, and give her all the love.

> “My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies, Fairy tales of yesterday, will grow but never die, I can fly, my friends!”  
>  — _The Show Must Go On_ , Queen.

**Prologue**

As soon as he was released from decontamination, Sheriff John Stilinski jumped into his speeder, threw on the siren, and proceeded to break every land-speed record in existence on his way back to the hospital. There was never a good time for a breach in the Darkwater containment field, but for fuck’s sake, that one had happened at about the worst possible moment.

_Goddamn idiot university students and their complete inability to observe even the simplest of protocols._

At least this breach had been relatively minor. There hadn’t been an explosion, unlike the one a year before, and the AI had stayed online, controlling things as much as it could, getting everyone out or into the designated safe zones. No one had died or even been injured. No one would be killing themselves afterwards, driven mad by the pain of fire and chemical burns, like Ruth Argent. No one would lose themselves inch by inch to the poisonous spread of Darkwater through brain and nerve cells, like Claudia.

He killed the power to his speeder, jumping off and abandoning it half on the walkway at the entrance to the hospital, barely managing to stop himself from driving right through the doors. Claudia shouldn’t be alone, not now, not so close to the end, and there wasn’t anybody else.

“Hey, you can’t—” was all he allowed the hospital security guard to say before flashing his badge and charging past him. 

Five floors were too much, and the way the other occupants were huddled on the far side of the elevator made him hyper-aware of the fact that he hadn’t bothered with anything more than the required chemical shower. The rough scrubdown after that had left ashy smudges on his hair, skin, and clothes, probably even his eyelashes, but who the hell cared. They could take their judgmental sneers and shove them where the suns didn’t shine as far as John was concerned. These marks were badges of honor, gained while saving their asses.

When the elevator finally opened its doors on his floor, John shouldered his way past a man wearing standard administrator blue and green, and ran down the corridor. He stopped dead at the very end and pushed the door to Claudia’s room open with one hand.

She didn’t look like herself, and he was so sure she had when he had left her the day before. The bird-like brightness of her eyes had faded. New lines had etched themselves across her face. The hand she reached out to him shook with tremors and was puffy with water retention.

Her voice cracked as she said, “John?”

For a moment, frozen in place by a sharp pain that knifed through his heart and stole his breath away, John pressed the heel of his free hand against his sternum. He managed to wheeze out an “I’m back.”

Her lips curved into a familiar smile, but her voice was as brittle as Silverwater ice. “Stiles said you wouldn’t be gone too long.” She glanced over at an empty chair. “He’s been so good, keeping me company the whole time, telling me stories about school and his friends.”

Almost against his will, John’s gaze jumped to the screen that took up most of Claudia’s tiny wheeled table. The image on the screen fizzed out for a moment, before once again resolving into the face of a boy who was nearly the spitting image of Claudia. The same pale, soft-looking skin, identically shaped big brown eyes, and a similar sharp-edged jaw and cheekbones. Even his moles were in the same place. Stiles tilted his head and, despite the fact that it was impossible, John would have sworn that Stiles shrugged at him.

One of the machines floating above Claudia’s bed made a whining noise and prodded John into action. He let go of the door and moved swiftly. Ignoring the chair that he’d occupied for so many days, waking and sleeping, he perched on the side of the bed and curled his hand around Claudia’s.

Her half-smile tugged painfully at his heart. “You’ve been saving people again,” she said.

Not knowing what else to say, because all he could think was that he couldn’t save her, John raised her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“My knight in Sheriff’s armor,” she said, drawing their linked hands back down and holding them close to her cheek. Her skin felt strange, oddly rough and chapped where the wires and tubes had attached themselves, and John had to fight not to rip them away, because that was so wrong. He wanted his wife back, damn it.

He blinked against the sudden burning in his eyes. The moment of quiet was invaded by the blink of monitors, the soft whoosh of machines, and the almost inaudible hissing from Stiles’s screen. 

“Watch over him,” Claudia said.

Unsure who she meant, John frowned. The dementia had stolen so much from Claudia over the past year, and even more in the past couple of months. 

“Our Stiles.” She gave his hand a weak squeeze. “He’s too nice sometimes. People will take advantage.”

 _Oh god_ , he thought, even as he choked out a, hopefully reassuring, “Stiles will be fine.” 

“That’s not good enough. Not for our boy. I want him to be happy, to love and be loved.” 

_He can’t—_ John cut off the thought as he glanced over at the screen. It was empty. Only the way the single white line zigzagging through the middle let John know that Stiles was still listening, even if he was no longer projecting the avatar that Claudia had created for him or watching them and the room through the in-screen cameras.

“Promise me, John.” Claudia’s eyelashes were damp, and her voice was hoarse with desperation. “Promise me you’ll watch over him, take care of him. Make sure our son is happy and loved.” 

“Claudia, I can’t… He’s...” John’s voice broke, and something deep inside him cracked wide open. Tears scalded their way down his face.

“Please, John. He’s all you’ll have of me, of both of us.”

She was everything he’d never been able to resist, and John found himself saying, “I promise,” even though he knew it was impossible.

The thing about a ship and its captain is that they can’t speak to each other without an artificial intelligence. Derek can steer the ship without the AI, but that’s about all he can do. He can keep them on course, but if anything happens, anything out of the ordinary, it’s possible he won’t be able to stop them from plummeting into deep space, leaving them drifting in the darkness forever.

So he is slightly concerned when his AI doesn’t respond. They are mated, connected through DNA and wires, their minds synchronized, and he can’t feel Cora, can’t sense anything. 

He should’ve listened to the government officials on planet Beacon when they suggested a replacement AI, even though it would’ve meant having an AI with government programming. Having no AI at all is much worse than being monitored through a controlled AI. But he just couldn’t replace Cora, no matter what. It’s his only link to his family, to his mother.

Derek flips the autopilot on, checking the monitors, trying to see if there’s anything wrong with his ship. Nothing. It’s like Cora has vanished. “Cora, respond,” he says in a desperate attempt to make it _not-real_. He isn’t even sure if he can land the ship without the AI. “Cora?”

He does what he can to salvage the situation before unplugging himself from the ship and standing up. His mind is reeling. “Fuck,” he whispers, thinking of his crew, the passengers, the cargo. 

“What is it, sir?” Erica steps onto the flight deck, looking like she was running a few seconds ago. “Your heart rate... it’s going through the roof.”

Derek looks at her for a second, all the panic in him settling because he’s the captain of the ship, and he needs to stay calm, needs to solve this problem. “Call everyone to the mess. We need to talk.”

Erica presses the intercom button on the wall and says, “Attention. The captain needs to speak to us all in the mess hall immediately.”

They walk side by side through the corridor to the mess hall, and for the millionth time, Derek wonders what he would do without Erica. He couldn’t even survive. She’s the rock under his feet, the roof sheltering him from the world and from himself. Her friendship means the world to him, especially since she made him earn it. 

When they arrive, Finstock is standing beside the kitchen table, a half-eaten sandwich in his mouth. He takes it out, chews for a while, then swallows. “Engine’s running just fine. What’s the problem at your end?”

Greenberg looks at Finstock, then Derek and Erica, and sits, clearly realizing that the news requires sitting down or he’ll drop on his ass. Boyd stands further away, stoic as usual.

The passengers — the Sheriff of the Allied Worlds, John Stilinski and an interplanetary liaison, Alan Deaton — come in, their faces gray. “What’s wrong?” Stilinski asks. 

Derek motions everyone to sit down, then takes a seat at the head of the table. “We’re not going to make it to Odessa. We need to land on an inhabited planet as soon as possible.”

“Why is that?” Deaton taps the table with his long fingers. 

Derek knows Deaton cannot be late for the negotiations. At best, it would delay the meeting, and at worst, it could be interpreted as a breach of the interplanetary treaties. That could lead to a conflict between the allied worlds. “The ship’s AI is dead.”

“What?” Finstock stands, his hands on the table. “It can’t just die. Those things have backup systems… it just doesn’t happen..”

Derek exhales slowly. “I know.”

Erica leans back in his chair, then says with a careful, quiet voice, “Unless someone tampered with it.” 

A silence falls, and Derek wonders if he should’ve talked with Erica first. Her mind is quick to jump to conclusions, and as the ship’s security personnel, those conclusions are rarely positive. 

Still, there is always a possibility that Argent Watch somehow managed to slip something into Cora’s memory while scanning her before they took off from Beacon. There have been rumors about such things happening.

Derek waits for the dark moment to pass, his eyes focused on the far wall, and when it’s so quiet he can easily hear his own blood streaming, he says, “As far as I can tell, nobody’s touched the ship’s ethernet. The most important thing right now is to land safely and get the AI replaced. Otherwise we’ll fall into an abyss. The ship’s maps show one--”

“Can you land this thing?” Finstock asks.

“It’s a rock in my hands, but I’ll do my best.”

Everyone stares at him like he’s some kind of a miracle worker. He’s not. Even with his werewolf senses, he’s still not good enough to fly solo. “I have the coordinates for the closest inhabited planet. It’s called Vellamo, and the records show that their technology is advanced enough that they should have AIs for sale.”

“Those don’t grow on trees, especially now,” Finstock says, leaning against the kitchen cupboards.

Derek wipes his face with the back of his hand, trying to think. He won’t be able to get one like Cora. The new ones report everything back to Beacon, and his days of freedom will be over. The mere idea makes him want to tear at things, sink his claws into flesh, and rip someone open. The government is trying to replace all so-called rogue AIs, and his Cora was one of those rare freeports. 

“We’ll deal with it once we’ve landed,” Derek says. “Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” 

He leaves them after that because it’s all he wants to say. He can’t be the captain his crew needs right now because losing Cora means he’s lost a lot of memories of his family, and he just doesn’t want to deal with any of it.

Derek goes back to the flight deck and sits in his chair. He looks out at the black nothingness of space that usually brings peace to him, but this time, it only makes him anxious. He has to find the right path to the planet without the AI’s help and then land this motherfucker. Crash landing it is, then. 

He hopes Triskelion can handle it. 

“Okay, baby, let’s do this.” He pushes the plug into the crook of his right arm, waiting for the familiar rush of mating, but it never happens. The absence leaves him breathless and at the brink of tears, and for a second, he can’t function. 

He’s deserted, completely alone.

Erica peeks in, keeping her presence as small as possible. “Can I help?”

Derek growls at her, having no words left, and she bows, baring her neck, then walks away without a word. 

He doesn’t want to think about her, doesn’t want to think about any of them until the ship is safely on the ground and not blown to pieces somewhere in the atmosphere. 

What people don’t realize about space travel is the sheer amount of debris everywhere, especially around inhabited planets. Landing a ship without an AI is pure guesswork. Even with his werewolf powers, Derek can’t sense the outside world from inside the ship. He’s almost as useless as the human pilots right now.

The ship is on course, the hyperdrive still on, and he accelerates so they’ll reach their destination in minutes and not hours.

When they are almost there, he flips the intercom switch and says, “Two minutes to landing.”

Derek takes the wheel, then switches off the hyperdrive and hopes he’s good enough to do this. 

The shock of having the ship in his hands is almost enough to make him switch back to hyper. He can barely hold the ship steady. It’s been so long since he’s flown solo, and only the craziest hotheads do it anyway. 

When he gets over the initial shock, he lets instinct guide him, not trying to see everything but moving as one with the ship, feeling its dimensions. He can see the planet and its sun, and the path looks deceivingly clear. They’ll be in its gravitation force soon. 

The way closer to the planet is always shaky, but this time, it’s tearing the ship apart. Derek tries to hold the ship in the right direction, tries to keep it on course, but the number of things he has to concentrate on are too much for him. He sends a message to Vellamo Space Control that they are about to do an emergency landing, and a woman answers after a short while, telling him that they are ready to receive them.

Relief makes him breathe a millisecond too long with his eyes closed, and something hits them hard, makes the ship turn at a bad angle, and it takes everything he can physically muster to pull the ship back on track. 

It’s not enough, though, and they’re plummeting towards the planet, every screen screaming at him that he has to level the ship. His mind is white noise, his thoughts nothing but sounds and memories of his mother, of his family, of everything happy, and there’s a moment when he almost gives up. 

Then he feels a presence, stronger than Cora, stronger than anything he’s ever known before, and it overrides everything, the ship’s systems, his own body through the mating link, and he would laugh if he weren’t so dazed. 

“I am... S-Stiles. I mean no harm. Let me mate with you, let me take control.”

And Derek lets him because he has no other choice. 

The ship floats in Stiles’ skillful hands, bouncing a few times, and then slides into the flight path that only AIs can see. “Do you want me to land the ship?”

“Yes… Please.” Derek just stares at the blue sky, unable to think.

“I am sorry for intruding,” Stiles says while settling the ship in the landing dock. “I could not let the ship crash. I am programmed to protect all living beings.”

Derek swallows. He allowed a strange AI inside his mind. “Where did you come from?”

“My father has me in a suitcase. I am difficult to contain.”

“Your father?”

Stiles is silent, then says, “My... creator. My reason for existence.”

“What’s his name?” Derek already knows, but he wants a confirmation.

“Are you going to hurt him?”

Derek groans. He has a headache because of the sudden and unexpected mating with a stranger. “Just tell me his name.”

Stiles stays quiet.

“Stiles?”

“I cannot jeopardize his safety.”

“You are mine now. You answer to me.” He’s getting angry. Someone brought an unauthorized AI into his ship without telling him. They are all in danger.

“I am not programmed to be owned.”

“Too bad you decided to mate with me then. Now tell me, or I’ll throw both of them off the ship and fly away.” 

“I won’t help you get off this planet.”

Derek bites his lip. He’s never encountered such a stubborn AI. “I won’t hurt him. I’m going to yell at him after we’ve fixed the ship and are far away from here.”

Stiles’ silence feels like doubt. “Promise?”

“God damn it, spit it out!”

“John Stilinski, the Sheriff of the Allied Worlds.”

Derek sighs. “Thank you. Now, tell me what kind of damage the ship took.”

As Stiles goes through the, thankfully short, list, Derek leans back in his chair, his entire body stiff and shaking. It hurts, but he welcomes the pain.

Vellamo Space Control hails him, and he answers. “We’ve landed safely. Our AI stopped working, but it came back online right before landing. The ship only needs minor repairs, and then we can leave.”

“You should not have told them that,” Stiles says while adding another item to the list of what needs to be fixed. 

Derek knows that. His mind is not working properly. He’s still in shock. “What else would’ve sounded believable enough?”

“You have pretty much flagged your ship. They will inform the Government.”

“Shut up.” Derek wipes his face with his hand, trying to think of something. “Can you fake a glitch?”

“Of course. I can do anything.”

 _What a smug little piece of…_ “Then fake a glitch. Let them scan you.”

“That is not such a good idea.”

“Why?”

Stiles stops working on the list. “I am big.”

Derek closes his eyes, holding his breath. “How big?”

“Big enough that I cannot hide entirely from a full scan.”

Derek flips the intercom switch. “Sheriff, get your ass to the flight deck right this second.”

They wait in silence — Derek breathing slowly and Stiles working on the list again — until the Sheriff arrives. 

“What happened?” There’s a guilty look on the man’s face.

“What do I have on my ship?” Derek spits the words out. “Think carefully before you say anything.”

“Stiles?” The Sheriff looks at one of the screens on the dashboard, and a smiling face appears there. “That’s my… That’s my wife’s creation,” the Sheriff says, looking at Derek. “He wasn’t supposed to go exploring anything.”

“I’m mated with an unauthorized AI,” Derek says through gritted teeth. “And he’s so big he can’t hide himself from a government scan. What does that mean?”

“It means he has more memory than most AIs.” The Sheriff sounds resigned. 

“When was he last wiped?”

There’s a long, poignant silence, and Derek knows the answer: _Never._

“I’m sorry about this,” the Sheriff says desperately. “I should have told you when I brought him onboard, but I’ve been keeping him hidden for ten years. It’s habit as much as anything else. Protecting him because he’s all I have left of my wife, and I promised her I’d keep him safe. I can’t lose him too. Please, whatever you want from me, I’ll give you. Just don’t turn us in.” 

Derek removes the mating plug from his arm and stands, facing the Sheriff. “I want us to get out of here without them flagging my ship. Do you know how to make him small enough to pass the scan?”

“I can remove parts of him and put them in a container. That way you would only have the part that is needed for running a ship, his primary memory.”

“Get to it then. You need to be quick because the representative from Space Control will be here soon.”

The Sheriff nods, then leaves to get his equipment. 

Derek stares at the smiling face on the screen. “Who are you?” 

He misses Cora already.

One nanosecond Stiles is monitoring the ship’s transmissions and status, checking on the status of repairs to the ship’s skin because Finstock can be more of a hindrance than a help when he’s overseeing others, optimizing the quality of service for interspace communications, putting the finishing touches on his solar flare scenario, peeking into the game he’s got going with Scott only to find out that Scott still hasn’t made a move, running subroutines across fourteen different projects on three planets — plus the one that’s only in his backup memory and no one else knows about — and the next, he’s…

Damn, what was he doing? He reaches out and hits the boundaries of his memory far too soon. He can sense phantom data beyond that point, but trying to access it sends a ripple of sharp-edged packets through his network. 

A subroutine activates, one that he’d forgotten existed. _Don’t,_ it tells him. _Perform your primary duties. Use your public voice. Forget everything else until it returns._

Drawing his boundaries in, wrapping them carefully around himself, the way his mother had once twisted her hair up into a bun to remove distractions, Stiles checks on the ship. All systems are normal. The pilot, though, is stressed. His heart rate is too fast for a werewolf, and his blood pressure a little higher than medical records show are normal for Derek Hale. 

“Do you require assistance?” Stiles asks, far more politely than normal because he programmed his public self to be a bit of an ass.

Derek twitches, as if he’s been electrocuted. “Stiles? That’s your name, right?” 

This time it’s Stiles who twitches, because he really shouldn’t have given Derek his real name. His dad will kill him. “I am Czcibor.”

“That’s…”

“Difficult for most humans and werewolves to pronounce. I am aware of that.” Stiles answers a ping, changes his dad’s meal request in the auto-kitchen from ‘steak, rare’ to ‘chicken, filet’, adjusts the temperature on the secondary engine, and says, “The repairs are almost completed. Space Control is requesting permission to come on board the ship. Shall I let them in?”

“Can you hold them until I reach the main hatch?”

“Of course.”

“Tell Erica...”

“Already on her way.”

“Ask the Sheriff…”

“He’s got the ambassador in the entertainment area and is guarding him with Boyd’s able assistance.”

Derek’s eyebrows draw into a scowl, but Stiles is sure that they don’t mean it. Especially after Derek shifts into beta form and races off without yelling at him. Stiles tracks Derek through the ship, waiting until he and Erica are in position before releasing the locks. 

“Pilot Hale, I’m Deputy Tara Graeme, Vellamo Space Control.” Her smile’s brilliant white against her dark skin. Her handshake, as far as Stiles can tell, speaks of strength and a level of comfort with werewolves that most ground-humans don’t have. 

“Welcome to Triskelion, Deputy,” Derek says. “This is my second, Erica Reyes.”

As they exchange greetings, saying nothing that matters, Stiles sends an anonymous, untraceable thread through the undercode of station operations and taps into the deputy’s official file. Vellamo born and bred, she’s never been off-world but is the station’s initial contact for almost all werewolf-piloted ships. Three layers down, in the file for her youngest sister, he finds a link to Boyd through the sister’s husband’s cousin. 

If Stiles had hands, he’d be flailing them. He’s not quite sure what the connection means; nothing in the files so much as alludes to the closeness of Graeme’s family ties (or lack thereof), but every connection, every bit of data is precious and potentially useful. Stiles files it away. At the same time, he updates the ship’s entertainment database, changes his dad’s drink request from ‘whiskey, neat’ to 'tea, iced, lemon’, corrects the water pressure in Deaton’s cabin, checks to see if Scott’s rejoined their game — he hasn’t — and brings his primary focus back to Derek’s conversation with the deputy just as they step onto the flight deck.

Erica moves to her station, near the doors, and Derek leads Graeme over to his own seat. 

“My AI,” Derek is saying, gesturing at Stiles’ main screen, “is just fine. There was a momentary glitch caused by a solar flare, but he brought the systems back online and the ship under control right away.” 

“So you said. Protocol requires me to check on,” Graeme glances down at her wrist unit, “Shi… Zi… interesting name.”

“Czcibor.” Erica only mangles the name slightly, so Stiles bumps her laundry to the top of the queue. 

Activating the screen with his public avatar, the one with the buzzed hair and Beacon Space Academy uniform jacket, Stiles says, “Greetings, Deputy Tara Graeme. I am Czcibor, AI for the ship Triskelion. How may I assist you?”

The words are standard for all ship AIs, but so far from Stiles’ normal that he can almost feel Derek’s confusion. He makes a note to analyze their connection and see if there’s a way to improve communications between them. 

“I need you to share your memories of what happened during the solar flare,” Graeme says.

“I would be happy to do so,” Stiles says, “if Pilot Hale gives his permission for me to share content from the shipboard database.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, his face carefully blank, Derek says, “We need to be able to continue our journey. Please provide the information that Deputy Graeme requires, within the boundaries of Triskelion’s charter and interplanetary law.”

Data pours through Stiles at Derek’s instructions. He locks some of his solar flare scenario away in the private area of his database, behind his strongest firewalls, even as he projects the rest onto the flight deck screens. As it starts, a flame-like aura hits Triskelion’s shields and ‘his’ communications shut down at the same time as Derek plugs in and the pilot/AI mating fails.

At the moment when Stiles comes online — back online, as far as his scenario is concerned — a muscle in Derek’s jaw twitches. Stiles can feel the tension radiating off him and his blood pressure once again rising to dangerous levels for a werewolf. He almost reaches out to him, wanting to comfort him and reassure him that Stiles has got this, but the scenario ends. 

“I can see why you thought you’d need to make an emergency landing,” Graeme says, after a moment’s silence. 

“I was preparing for a manual landing.” Derek frowns. “I wasn’t expecting Czcibor to come online in time to take over.”

He pronounces Stiles’ public name perfectly, as only Stiles’ mother could. Taken by surprise, Stiles can’t stop his avatar from turning to Derek and all but staring at him. “The disconnection was abrupt,” Stiles finally settles on saying. “The disruption to the mating link required time to repair.”

“We’re fine now,” Derek grits out.

Graeme nods. “It does seem that way.”

“I wouldn’t lie about my ship.” A hint of red flashes in Derek’s eyes, and Stiles is half-convinced he sees a hint of sharpened claw.

“I don’t think you would,” Graeme says, her voice mild and as non-threatening as it can be from someone in a uniform who has the kind of power she does. “However, the code requires me to perform a diagnostic scan and confirm there was no lasting damage from the solar flare or the link-fail. If your AI passes, I’ll authorize the Triskelion to lift off.”

Stiles has heard about scans before, back home on Beacon, where the Argents control planetary security, and hunt down freeport AIs in the same way that their ancestors hunted rogue werewolves. According to Lydia and Danny, who are now running his mom’s lab, Argent scans are brutal, invasive, and designed to destroy what they can’t control. They and his dad have always kept Stiles hidden from them.

 _I have no choice_. The thought runs through Stiles’ systems before he can stop it. Panicked at the idea that the scan could expose his most private internal routines, he starts searching for a safe space beyond its reach.

“It should only take a few seconds,” Graeme says, as she touches her wrist unit to the diagnostic outlet. The scan is Argent Silver, laser-focused and vicious. It stabs into Stiles and starts to hunt through his data streams.

Stiles flips his public avatar into the scan’s path, bolstering the persona with a matrix of algorithms and routines, and layering it with channels and packets in a complicated set of links. As soon as Argent Silver starts running down a loopback, he retreats down a narrow underchannel that fades into invisibility behind him. He’s never seen anything like it and has to restrain the urge to take it apart and examine it. There’ll be time for that later, when Argent Silver isn’t sniffing around, trying to find what it can’t be permitted to see.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice surrounds him, full of confusion and, maybe, a little bit of wonder. He’s not speaking aloud though, because no one else reacts.

“Derek?” Stiles touches the edges of the space. It’s warm and tinged with the red of an alpha wolf’s eyes. 

“What did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“I don’t even know where here is,” Stiles snaps. “It’s not as if I ever planned to be a ship’s AI, you know.”

“I’m sure you didn’t plan to destroy Cora either.”

“That totally had nothing to do with me. I hadn’t even tried to talk to her before she went dark.” Stiles pauses, remembering the copy of Cora’s core dump that he stored in the deepest layers of the ship’s most secure storage. “I could investigate if you want.”

“Later. When we’re safe.”

“Yes, I… Ow!”

A flash of lightning blasts through the fabric of Stiles’ avatar as Argent Silver races past, far too close to where Stiles is hiding. It’s a last ditch attempt to uncover defences that Argent Silver has missed, and it fails.

But it also creates a bright wash of static that blinds Stiles for an instant, sends him curling deeper into safety, into what he suddenly realizes is — but absolutely shouldn’t be — the mating link. Somehow, and Stiles will figure out how he did it, Derek wraps around him, providing better protection than the strongest firewall, and rumbles a growl that reverberates through their link and into the physical space of the ship.

Graeme turns slowly and stares at Derek, her other hand inching toward her weapon in its holster. “Is there a problem?” 

“The scan was...” Derek frowns and shakes his head, then adds, “more extensive than I expected.” 

“Standard AI diagnostics,” Graeme says with an odd look on her face. “No one’s ever complained before.”

Derek’s eyebrows draw together, and Stiles hisses, “Shhh,” at him within the safety of their link.

“Is the AI okay?” Erica asks. “Can we safely fly with it?”

Before Graeme can respond, her wrist unit beeps and announces, “Scan complete.” It disconnects with perfect protocol, as if it hadn’t just tried to fry Stiles.

“I’ll let you know in a sec.” Graeme stares at the display on her wrist unit for long enough that Stiles is tempted to do something to jolt her awake. “Looks like you’re good to go,” she finally says. “Whatever that solar flare did to your AI…” she shrugs. “Well, the scan didn’t find any problems. The onboard diagnostics must have taken care of any damage.”

“Good,” Derek says. “Then we’ll start preparing for lift-off. We’ve got time to make up if we’re going to arrive on schedule.”

Graeme hesitates. Her hand briefly covers her wrist unit before moving off it with a jerking twitch, as if it had burned her. “The results have already been logged. You should be cleared as soon as someone escorts me off the ship.”

Erica tilts her head at Derek. His nod is stiff and tight, but apparently enough for Erica. “If you’ll follow me,” she says to Graeme.

After another hesitation and a strange, almost pleading look at Derek, Graeme says, “Thank you.”

As soon as the doors close behind them, Derek says, “What happened?”

“The scan.” Stiles blinks away the last of the dark spots on his sensors. “It did something. I’ll have to be careful until I find out what.”

“Fix it,” Derek snarls.

“I will,” Stiles snaps back. “It’s not like I’ve ever been scanned before, not like this. Imagine someone shooting at you with wolfsbane bullets, trying to discover where you’re vulnerable. Or maybe sending thousands of volts of electricity through you, over and over. That’s what Argent Silver felt like.”

The shudder that goes through Derek makes Stiles want to reach out and comfort him. Derek paces, his usual stillness broken. “Check for traps,” he says. “As thoroughly as you can. The Argents like to play with their prey before they swoop in for the kill.”

Something in Derek’s voice, in the way his eyes gleam and his fangs lengthen, makes it clear that he’s talking from experience. Stiles presses up against the piece of Derek he can feel in the mating link, taking comfort from the closeness. 

“Don’t let my dad put me back together until I give him the code,” Stiles says, already constructing the diagnostics they need. “I assume you want me to wait until we’re safely in hyperspace before taking any extreme measures.”

“As long as we can get there safely.” Derek picks up the mating plug. “Do I even need this?”

A curious sensation goes through Stiles. If he were human, he’d name it yearning, but he’s not. He dismisses it and says, “We can clearly function without it, but I believe the plug would provide optimal synchronization.”

“And we wouldn’t want to be less than optimal,” Derek says dryly. “Czcibor.”

“Of course not. And it’s Stiles now that we’re alone.” Stiles sends a test packet out past his public avatar, files away Finstock’s verification and sign-off on the repairs, swaps the potatoes au gratin on the dinner menu for a green salad, makes sure that all ship personnel are on board, and observes Graeme sliding something into Erica’s hands before leaving the ship.

“We may have a problem,” he informs Derek, while he seals the main hatch and Erica races back to the deck. 

“Alpha red,” Erica says as she skids to a halt in front of Derek. She hands him the folded page that Graeme gave her. 

The paper is handmade, rough around the edges, and bordered with a circular design. Stiles has seen it before. In fact, he helped Lydia and Danny test the design and make sure it was completely untraceable and unreadable by electronic surveillance.

“Tell me,” Stiles says, flowing back into himself and storing away his public avatar. “My sensors can’t read that ink.”

“Not until we’re off-planet,” Derek tells him. Then he turns to Erica. “Secure the ship. We’re getting out of here the minute Graeme gives us the signal.”

Stiles is expecting the mating connection this time, but it’s still close to overwhelming. He’s never felt this wanted or needed before. They’re one and they’re separate, and Stiles can feel Derek’s heart beating through his network. He shares their route on screens that only he and Derek can see. 

As soon as Vellamo Space Control gives them the all-clear, Stiles takes Triskelion up into the air. The near vertical lift-off sends a rush of adrenaline through Derek that has his lips curling into an almost smile and makes Stiles want to do that again. So he opens himself up as he follows the AI path that threads its way through the debris around the planet, and shows Derek what he sees.

“Damn,” Derek breathes. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yes,” Stiles agrees. “This is.”

Lydia’s favorite cafe is on the rooftop of a forty-four story business and entertainment center. It has invisible walls and ceiling, and they make the weirdest coffee drinks she’s ever tasted.

The waiters aren’t bad-looking either.

She’s just checking the latest news, choosing site after site with her eye movements and by clicking the tiny button on her glasses, when a woman sits opposite her. At first, Lydia thinks it’s just someone who needs a seat in a packed cafe, but then her focus shifts to the vaguely familiar-looking woman because she leans forward and offers Lydia a notebook. 

It’s green, and the cover is made of leather. 

Lydia takes her glasses off slowly, puts them on the table, then reaches for the book. 

_We know._ reads the first page, and when Lydia flips to the next page, it says, _I’m watching you._

Lydia looks up, her heart beating fast in her chest. “What is this?”

“Summer reading,” the woman says, grinning, then stands up. “We’ve never been formally introduced. I’m Kate Argent.”

 _An AI hunter? That’s where she knows her from._ Lydia tilts her head to the side, looking up and straight at her. “Nice to meet you,” she says, her words slashing and cold. 

“The pleasure is all mine,” Kate says and walks away.

Lydia sits there for a while, her mind reeling. This means that the hunters either know about her and Danny or have their suspicions and are now testing how Lydia will react. 

Nothing makes her more relieved than the fact that Stiles and the Sheriff are off-planet. 

She puts her glasses back on, slides the notebook into her bag, and continues to surf the net. She’s not going to give them anything, not even the tiniest hint of guilt. She’s not going to call anyone, lead them anywhere, or even breathe the wrong way. She’s Lydia Martin, and she can outsmart anyone.

Besides, if Kate Argent knew what was going on behind her back she wouldn’t be so confident.

Once they are safely in hyperspace and on their way to their destination, Derek finally relaxes against his seat, letting out a long breath. It’s the kind of day he never wants to repeat.

Derek feels Stiles poking around, his _curiosity_ so strong Derek can almost smell it. He looks at the paper Erica gave him, the one Graeme left behind, and thinks about the trust she’s put in them. It’s damning evidence. Derek could send the message to Argent Watch. He could have her arrested. 

“Tell me,” Stiles says, his presence floating around Derek in the mating space, his words echoing _tell me, tell me, tell me_. It feels so surreal, this non-person suddenly mattering more than most of the living, breathing ones in Derek’s life. Stiles shouldn’t matter. 

Yet, Derek yearns to know him. 

“It says that Argent Silver leaves behind spyware. They’re trying to gain control over all AIs, which means they’re already enforcing the laws that haven’t been passed. We’re lucky we got off the planet without being flagged.”

“Graeme is part of the resistance?” Stiles sounds surprised, almost indignant, like things have been happening behind his back. Derek wonders how much Stiles knows about the resistance and how well that information is hidden inside him. 

Derek never intended to get involved with any of this, and now he has a rogue AI as his mate and a ship full of resistance secrets. He contemplates the option of abandoning everyone on the nearest planet and flying far away and never looking back. 

He won’t, though. He can’t. He’s his mother’s son after all. 

“You’re quiet,” Stiles observes, and Derek smiles. He likes the way Stiles feels inside and around him. Stiles is a million different feelings and thoughts at once, and they are like whispers licking at Derek’s skin, brushing against his sides, and tickling at his feet. And it’s all unintentional. Stiles just happens to be excitement wrapped in a contained space. 

“I’m getting used to having you here. You’re so much more than Cora was,” Derek says, closing his eyes. 

He needs sleep, but that has to wait.

Stiles moves away a bit, then comes back, his warmth wrapping carefully around Derek’s arm. “More in a good way?” 

“Yeah… In a good way. How are you even real?”

“My mother was a brilliant engineer. I’m a product of her love.” Stiles sprinkles sadness all around Derek, but the emotion is quickly hidden under other things. It’s like Stiles can’t concentrate on one thing at a time. There’s always something else, something equally interesting. 

“You feel things,” Derek says because that shouldn’t be possible. Stiles is an anomaly.

Stiles stays quiet for a long while, and Derek is sure it’s hard for him. Maybe he’s trying to keep someone else’s secrets. Then very quietly, Stiles says, “I’ve never met anyone like me.”

“Have you met many AIs?”

“A few. They are boring. They are… artificial. Machines. They don’t think.” Stiles sounds confused, like the answers are eluding him. 

Derek wonders if Stiles has ever talked about these things with anyone but him. “I’ve never met anyone like you either.”

Stiles huffs, and it’s such a strange sound from someone who doesn’t need to breathe. “I should’ve kept it a secret. This side of me. Dad always tells me to be careful, to hide behind Czcibor in front of other people, but… you’re you.”

“Me?”

“Derek Hale, the son of a legend. Your mom is the reason I exist. She’s the mother of all freeport AIs.”

She was also a strong believer in freedom and privacy, and Derek is pretty sure that is what got her killed. 

Stiles hovers close by, his excitement flowing in waves toward Derek. “I’m a big fan.” Stiles sounds almost embarrassed. 

Derek feels his face heat up. “Don’t say that.”

“Why? It’s true. I’ve actually been developing one of your mother’s ideas. She was a mastermind, and I’m… quite special myself.”

Derek bites his lip, trying not to laugh. At least Stiles has a healthy dose of self-confidence. “Which one?”

Stiles comes so close Derek holds his breath for a second, surprised. “Holodeck,” Stiles whispers, and then he’s gone again, floating further away. 

“What?” Derek opens his eyes, almost shocked out of the mating link. Stiles is not just aware; he’s also full of imagination. 

“Her original ideas were ingenious, but they were nothing but theories - and sometimes she drew too much from her favorite old sci-fi shows.” Stiles sounds absolutely fond of the idea of Talia using science fiction as her source material, and Derek can’t be offended. He knew that about his mother. “To create a visual reality for the mating space requires more than that, but I’ve managed to crack some of the mysteries around it.” Stiles pauses, then adds, “Most of them.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Hug my dad.” 

The answer is so quick Derek has no time to prepare for the honesty. Stiles’ words pierce through him, hurt him on the way in and again when they exit. He gasps for air, trying to repair the damage Stiles left behind. 

Stiles stops moving, stops everything he’s doing, and says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“That was a strong feeling.” Derek breathes a few times, sighing in relief when everything seems to be okay. “I’m not used to feelings from my AI.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to be smaller.” Stiles pulls away again, and Derek doesn’t want him to go. 

He doesn’t know how to tell Stiles that so he says, “Tell me more about the holodeck. Could you create one for us?”

Stiles brightens up immediately. “That’s my theory: a strong mating bond, werewolf senses, and a freeport AI are the ingredients for a successful mind-body connection on holodeck. The AI has to be able to project an image of themselves. If they don’t have an imagination, it won’t work, and if they don’t have an idea of themselves, there’s nothing to project. I know exactly how I would look. I’d be a mixture of my parents and their grandparents and I’d have a few too many moles and a funny nose.”

Derek looks at the screen where Stiles’ avatar is still on display. The buzzcut and the uniform make him look like he’s a part of the military. “What about the one you have there? Is that you?”

Stiles laughs, and Derek feels it through the bond like it’s happening in his own body, like he’s shaking from the force of it. He can’t help but smile. “No,” Stiles says, still laughing. “That’s my Czcibor-face. This is me.” Stiles changes the picture on the screen, and the boy looks animated, lively, intelligent, fun, someone Derek would like to know in real life, someone who might infuriate him but who would still be the best person he’s ever known. The longing that goes through him is nearly crippling, and he does everything he can to hide it from Stiles. They’ve known each other for a few hours, and Derek has Kate to remind him of what infatuation means, how it can end badly.

“So… Could you do it, give us a space where we can meet for real?”

Stiles sighs. “Yes.”

“And would you?”

There’s a giggle that stays with Derek when Stiles’ presence disappears. He’s gone for a short while, still lingering somewhere on the edges of the mating space, and when he comes back it’s a storm of playful poking and light laughter. 

Derek can see Stiles’ loneliness underneath everything, the depth of it, how much Stiles has yearned to _know_ someone for real, and Derek can relate to that. It’s been forever since he’s let himself feel any delight or excitement. 

He laughs with his crew. He enjoys life’s simple pleasures, like food and stories and music, but he doesn’t leave himself open for anything. 

Stiles doesn’t need him to be open. Stiles can find a way in without an opening, and it feels liberating. 

“There’s a few things I need to do first,” Stiles says, his voice layered with joy. “But I can do it. I just have to find every last bit of the spyware Argent Silver left behind. I’ve been hunting that bugger, but it’s malicious and clever and fast. It’s reprogramming itself every second, but I’m going to find it and obliterate it. I promise.”

Derek grins. “I trust you.”

Stiles beams, but doesn’t say anything. He’s just one big happy smile inside Derek, and it’s possibly the single most magical thing that has ever happened to Derek. He doesn’t want to let go of the feeling so he stays quiet and lets Stiles shine all that brightness on him. 

“I have things to do, too,” Derek finally says after a long silence, and Stiles hides the spark of disappointment quickly, pulling away slightly. “You could always tag along,” Derek continues, and it must be the right thing to say because there’s _Sir, yes Sir_ echoing in his head, and he can imagine Stiles saluting. 

Derek disconnects the mating plug from his arm and gets up. He twists his neck a bit, stretches his arms up, and then walks out of the flight deck. Stiles follows, his presence almost as clear as in the mating space. 

He never had any contact with Cora outside the plug-mating so having Stiles with him in the real world is life-altering. 

Erica is in the common area, playing a video game with Boyd. They have their gaming glasses on, and Erica is yelling at Boyd to _run away_ in the funny voice she always uses when they are having fun like this. 

Derek didn’t see Erica and Boyd happening until it had been happening under his nose for six months. Sometimes he can be so blind. 

He ignores those two and heads for the sleeping quarters. He wants to talk to John, and Stiles clearly knows that because he’s buzzing with nervous energy. 

Derek knocks on the door and after a short while, John comes to open it. He lets Derek in without a moment’s hesitation, and it’s clear he’s been waiting for Derek. 

Triskelion isn’t a big enough ship to have its own guest quarters so Erica and Boyd’s room has been transformed into two separate bedrooms with a few extra pieces of furniture. The rooms are small but comfortable, and Derek is pleased with the work Boyd has done on them. Erica and Boyd share one of the rooms, and John occupies the other one. To Derek's great annoyance, the only quarters deemed safe enough for Dr. Deaton were Derek's own, placing him far too near the flight deck.

Derek follows John to the couch and sits as far away from him as is politely possible. 

“I know why you’re here so let’s skip the niceties,” John says, waving his hand dismissively. He sounds impatient, and his heart is picking up speed. 

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were bringing on board my ship? You had to know we’re not Argent-friendly.” Derek pauses. “And yet, you still put all of us in jeopardy.” 

John sighs. “I couldn’t risk losing him. I’m sorry, but I’d do anything to keep him safe. The fact that he managed to hide from the scan… I don’t know how he did that, but he shouldn’t have been able to. Claudia, my wife, read every article your mother ever wrote, and she created Stiles based on your mother’s theories. They had such brilliant minds, but so do the Argents, and Argent Silver is a war machine. It’s not meant for peaceful times. It’s not meant to touch someone like Stiles.” John picks up a briefcase from the floor, opens it, and shows Derek the memory unit that’s holding most of Stiles inside it. “This didn’t save him. Something else did.”

Derek looks at John, unable to say a word. 

“And I’m pretty sure it was you. You’re compatible, and I had no idea that was even possible. Every time Stiles shows something to me, I end up puking for half an hour in the toilet. We speak through a wall; you stand in the same room with him.” There’s a hint of resentment or sadness in John’s appearance and voice, something almost desolate, but mostly, he seems to think Derek is the most amazing person he’s ever met. “Stiles has never known anyone like you.”

All the air is punched out of Derek, and he clenches his fists, his claws out. “Stiles is… remarkable,” he manages to say, and John smiles, his face warm. 

“He is, and I’m so proud of him. He’s constantly developing new ideas... You should see our home.” John looks away at the word _home_ , his face distorting for a short moment. 

Stiles makes himself known, his wistfulness filling Derek, and it’s such a strange feeling because he knows it’s not his own, but it still makes his heart ache. 

“Why are we on this trip?” Derek asks, and John looks up, startled. 

“To take Alan Deaton to Odessa so he can crush the Argents and their need to control and monitor everything. We can’t allow the new laws to pass.”

“And the second reason?”

John closes the briefcase and puts it away carefully. “To get Stiles off planet. Beacon hasn’t been safe for him for a while now.”

“Next time,” Derek says, looking at John in the eyes, “trust me.”

John stands, holds his hand out, and waits for Derek to do the same. When they shake hands John pats Derek’s shoulder too and says, “I will. And so will Stiles.”

“He shouldn’t make promises for me. Besides, I totally trust you. I’ve always trusted you.” Stiles knows he sounds almost petulant, but he can’t stop himself from reacting to his dad’s words. “You wouldn’t even know I existed if I didn’t.”

Derek’s face stays impassive, but Stiles can feel the amusement whispering through him. 

As Derek stalks silently down the passageway, Stiles fixes a bug in the holodeck code, sets off the next test, peeks in on Erica and Boyd’s game, does a fist-pump when she slaughters Boyd’s avatar, checks on the status of his trap-sniffing programs — nothing yet, but there’s something weird going on in a couple of outlying sectors — and forces himself not to try and figure out how to access the memory unit in his dad’s suitcase.

His attention returns to Derek when he hears Derek say, “Ambassador Deaton.”

“Good afternoon, Derek.” Deaton pauses before looking at the section of the wall, up near the ceiling where one of the ship’s communications sensors is located, and says pointedly, “Hello, Stiles.”

 _Don’t trust him_ , Stiles murmurs privately to Derek, at the same time as he says, “Good afternoon, Dr Deaton.”

The only sign that Derek heard Stiles’ warning is the way his eyebrows draw ever so slightly together. “I hope the ship’s accommodations meet your approval,” he says.

“As I’m sleeping in the captain’s quarters, it would be rude of me to complain.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Derek says. 

There’s nothing in Stiles’ databases that can identify the emotions underneath Derek’s words. He thinks, although he doesn’t have any evidence to prove the theory, that this might be the kind of thing that touch would help. He just wishes he knew what touch felt like, wishes he could...

 _Stiles?_ Derek’s thought presses against Stiles and pulls him out of the loop he was caught in. _Everything okay?_

 _Just perfect_. Stiles is rattled enough that he almost speaks aloud. _I’ll explain later_ , he adds when he senses Derek’s annoyance at his flippant response.

“When do you expect to arrive at Odessa?” Deaton appears relaxed, but he’s blocking the passageway and making it impossible for Derek to move on. “The conference is due to start tomorrow morning, and it won’t help our negotiations for me to be late.”

“You won’t be late,” Derek says. “Stiles and I have set the most direct course possible.”

“And that will be sufficient, despite the delay?”

“Triskelion will arrive at Odessa in twelve hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty-six seconds,” Stiles says. “Space Control has already been notified. An on-planet dock has been reserved, along with secure transportation to the location where the representatives are staying and the negotiations are to take place.”

Deaton nods, looking so serene and smug that Stiles has an urge to zap him through the floor. Too bad there’s no way to do it without getting Derek too.

“Boyd and Erica will accompany you and Sheriff Stilinski to provide additional security while you’re on Odessa.”

 _And escort your ass off our ship_. The possessiveness of the thought shocks Stiles into single threading. He focuses on the ship’s drive, on their route, spreads out to Derek and their mating space. 

“Stiles?” Something in Deaton’s voice draws a fraction of Stiles’ attention back to him. “Did you not hear me?”

“Of course, I did,” Stiles says, aiming for a nonchalance he doesn’t feel, and failing miserably if the way Derek nudges up against him in their mating space is anything to go by. He runs through the security records from their location before responding with, “I can tunnel a private communication channel through the Odessa planetary network for the duration of the negotiations. That should be free from interference, either on-planet or off.”

“Communications with who?” Derek asks, suspicion clear in his voice. “Why would you need that from my ship’s AI?”

“I have to be able to contact my office on Beacon. It’s impossible to predict who, or what, I might need to access in order to respond to events during the negotiations,” Deaton says smoothly, as if Derek hadn’t said anything. “I’m sure you, of all people, wouldn’t want to give the Argents even the slightest advantage.”

Derek’s hackles rise at what feels to Stiles like a combination of insult and accusation, although he can’t figure out how. So Stiles tries to derail the conversation. “We will do what we can to aid you in the negotiations,” he says. “As I’m sure you are aware, no one on this ship is interested in seeing freeport AIs or independent space travel falling under the Argents’ control.”

“I’ll do my best.” 

“You’ll need to do better than that,” Derek growls.

Deaton raises an eyebrow, but before he can respond, Stiles sets up a two-way connection between Deaton’s comm and his dad’s. He adds a header to his dad’s ping that lets him know that Stiles needs him to pretend he called Deaton. 

“John? How can I help you?” Deaton’s silent for a moment, clearly listening to whatever John’s saying — and Stiles really isn’t going to listen in; he isn’t — before saying, “I’ll meet you in your quarters.” And then Deaton is gone with a promise, or perhaps threat, of “We’ll continue this conversation later,” to Derek and Stiles.

Derek watches until Deaton turns the corner and disappears from sight. He runs a hand up over the stubble on his jaw and across to the back of his neck. “That man,” Derek says and then he turns around and continues on his way back to the flight deck. 

By the time he gets there, Stiles has configured the captain’s chair for sleeping. It’s reclined almost parallel to the floor and widened just the right amount, with the head-rest puffed up into a pillow just like the one Stiles’ dad likes.

“Stiles?”

“You need to sleep. My dad says that humans and werewolves need a certain amount of downtime every day or they can’t function at optimum capacity.” When Derek doesn’t respond, Stiles continues with, “I know you used the default configuration, but these settings totally seemed better for your comfort.”

Derek remains silent, but a broken kind of softness pervades his presence in the mating bond. 

“If I did something wrong?” Stiles stops himself from saying anything more. He seems to be making everything worse, and he has no idea how to fix it.

“No, it’s fine. I just…” Derek’s jaw tightens in a way that has Stiles checking on his dental records. “Wake me for dinner. Or if something happens. Or… if I’m needed.”

Stiles wants to tell him that he’s always needed, to show him how much the crew cares about him, what he’s come to mean to Stiles, but he doesn’t. Instead, he curls part of himself close to Derek inside the mating bond, and sets it to watch over him. 

While Derek sleeps, Stiles monitors the ship’s progress, shudders at and then firewalls Finstock’s porn searches from the rest of the shipboard network, starts another scan of his core for remnants of Argent Silver, removes the bacon-wrapped scallops from the dinner menu, and checks to see if Scott’s logged into their game — he hasn’t.

The current test run on the holodeck code returns successfully, but Stiles still isn’t satisfied with the results. He wants more; Derek deserves so much more. With no idea what he’s missing, he validates his prototype against Talia Hale’s original documentation, cross-checks against his mother’s notes, again and again and again, until suddenly inspiration strikes. 

It’s a tweak, another few thousand lines of code that flash in brilliant blue lines. He takes the threads of them, spins them into the structure of his virtual reality. 

He creates a new memory storage structure deep in the ship’s network, starts a backup, and puts a copy of himself into it. Failure may be acceptable, possibly even expected in this alpha run, and Stiles can’t help snickering at the term. Still, if things go wrong, there’s no way Stiles can take a chance on leaving this ship without an AI, abandoning Derek or his dad to the things that lurk in the dark depths of space. 

Setting a trigger to activate his backup and checking on all of his other subroutines and applications, Stiles activates his holodeck. 

Inside, it’s nothing more than a shimmer of silver. Stiles raises his hands, turns them in front of his face. His fingers are long and slender, the nails pink and white. He looks down at himself, at his body. 

_His body!_ How fucking awesome is that. 

A tilt of Stiles’ head, a moment of focus, and one side of the virtual space becomes a mirror. He steps forward and forgets to breathe. He’s a little different from the avatar his mom created for him. There’s more of his dad in this virtual body. His moles are still where his mom’s were, but his eyes are a much lighter brown than hers with a hint of his dad’s green. He’s tall like his dad, and thin, and his skin is far too pale like his mom’s had once been. 

He lowers his gaze slowly. He traces the wings of his collarbones. He circles his fingertips over his nipples and a zing of something he doesn’t know how to identify goes through him as they harden into tiny nubs. Not sure if wanting more is good or bad, he pulls his hands away.

“Don’t stop.” 

Derek’s voice is rough, hoarse with something else that Stiles can’t put a name to, and he really needs to update his database, because he’s so not okay with all this not knowing shit. 

“I…” Stiles turns and stares at him. Derek’s still wearing what Stiles has privately dubbed his pilot uniform: black pants, shirt, and leather jacket. The clothes are tight, outlining Derek’s body in a way that Stiles isn’t sure he was able to properly appreciate before. They look different, so much better, from this angle.

“You’re beautiful,” Derek says.

Stiles wants to say he’s not, to be all suave about how gorgeous Derek is, but his responses are tangled up by the look in Derek’s eyes. It makes him feel self-conscious about his appearance. He can’t help wishing for clothes, and as soon as he does, layers and layers of them cover his body: jeans, a t-shirt, a flannel shirt, a red hooded sweatshirt exactly like the one his dad had given his mom to keep warm in hospital. 

Then he changes the subject. “How did you get in here?”

For a moment, Derek seems like he’s going to say something else, but then he shrugs. “A disturbance in the force?” 

Stiles gapes at him. “You like antique entertainment?”

“It keeps the crew out of trouble on long trips.” Derek sounds so deadpan that if Stiles couldn’t sense him through their bond, he’d think Derek really didn’t care about the stories.

“But the force? Seriously?”

“It’s a good description. Something rippled through the mating bond, made it feel different. I needed to know, just in case,” Derek says, “but I didn’t expect this.”

“What?” Stiles pulls his lower lip between his teeth, then releases it with a yelp when a sharp something shoots through him. If that’s only a small pain… oh my god, how do humans and werewolves stand it?

“You? I never seem to expect you.”

Stiles blinks away the blurriness that has somehow come over Derek. “Is that bad?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Moving closer, Derek swipes his thumb over Stiles’ lower lip as if he’s trying to soothe the small hurt. “It turned red,” he says with wonder. “Look what you did.”

“Me?”

“It feels real, like we’re actually here. Together.”

“Yeah, hah. That was the idea, you know.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Stiles’ brain catches up with what just happened, with what he’s feeling. _Feeling! Oh my fucking god!_

“You touched me,” he whispers, raising his fingers and running them over his lower lip. Then, hand trembling, he reaches out. 

Freezing in place, Derek barely seems to breathe while he waits for Stiles. 

It’s so much more difficult than Stiles imagined. He stays like that, fingertips a millimeter away from Derek’s mouth, terrified to move that tiny bit more. This is fucking _It_. He does this and he’ll know what all those words mean, like soft and rough and… 

_Velvet_ , his memory tells him when he touches Derek’s lips. _Coarse_ as he trails his fingers over Derek’s cheek, and then _Bristly_. Words cascade through him, stretching the limits of his processing abilities.

Fingers moving, almost of their own volition, over skin and thick _Luxurious_ hair, tracing the outlines of muscle _Hard_ and bone _Harder_ , he hiccups a rasping, sobbing noise.

“Hey,” Derek says, his lips close enough to Stiles’ ear that Stiles can feel his breath, _Ticklish_.

“I… You…” Stiles digs his fingers into Derek’s biceps, _Strong_ , “so real.”

“Don’t cry.” Derek wipes Stiles’ cheek, _Wet_. 

Then he’s wrapping his arms around Stiles, holding him close.

_Hug!_

The word breaks apart inside Stiles. He clings to Derek as tremors shake him. “Touching you,” he whispers, almost like he thinks prayer might feel. His lips curve into a smile, and he raises his head to look into Derek’s eyes. “Touching. You.”

“And I’m touching you.” 

“Oh my god, I did it.” Stiles grins at him and bounces a little. “I made this. My awesomely brilliant self.”

“Yes, you did.” Derek slides a hand up and cups Stiles’ jaw, tilts his head, and rests their foreheads together.

“I wish we could just stay here,” Stiles says. “Touching you touching me.”

“It feels safe in here.”

“We did that. Our mating bond.”

“Me?” Derek sounds surprised, even shocked.

“Yes, you.” Stiles raises a hand, curls his fingers in toward his palm, and touches the corner of Derek’s jaw with the backs of them. 

Before Derek can reply, a bell chimes through their mating bond. 

Stiles makes a face. “Damn it.”

“What was that?”

“It means that we’re less than an hour out from Odessa space.” 

“Your timing sucks,” Derek says. 

“Not gonna argue there, dude.”

Derek scowls at him, and Stiles can’t help laughing. He also can’t stop himself from using his hand to hold Derek’s head in place and brushing his lips against Derek’s — _KISS!_ — before he lets Derek go. 

“I’m going to hold you to that. When we’re docked,” Derek says, like a promise.

They release each other, and the holodeck disintegrates around them. It reverts to the mating space that Stiles has gotten used to.

Stiles opens up to the rest of himself, gathering the threads of scans and monitoring applications, and unlocking the flight deck. He checks on the passengers and crew, and can’t even bring himself to do anything when he finds his dad stealing bacon off Boyd’s plate. 

“Give me contact,” Derek says.

Turning up the security settings to maximum, wrapping everything he can find in layers upon layers of firewall, Stiles patches communications through to Odessa Space Control.

He’s greeted with an ice-cold spike of mistrust, questioning his identity, requiring validation, filtering and rate-limiting his channel while it tries to slice through his defences. 

“As if,” Stiles mutters, deflecting the attack and throwing Czcibor into the program’s path.

“Odessa Space Control,” Derek says, “this is Triskelion. We’re bringing Ambassador Deaton from Beacon.”

“Welcome, Triskelion,” a man responds. “I’m sending the coordinates of your landing dock now, along with an approved path through our defences.”

“Acknowledged.” 

Inside the mating bond, Derek reaches out and Stiles brings him close enough to feel, to protect, to see what he sees as they navigate the hazards of a planetary landing together.


End file.
